Cuomo to back some decriminalization

6/4/12 5:43 AM EDT

The New York governor and potential 2016 candidate will step into a thorny New York City law enforcement issue, the New York Times reports:

Wading into the debate over stop-and-frisk police tactics, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to ask legislators on Monday for a change in New York State law that would drastically reduce the number of people who could be arrested for marijuana possession as a result of police stops.

The governor will call for the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view, administration officials said. Advocates of such a change say the offense has ensnared tens of thousands of young black and Latino men who are stopped by the New York City police for other reasons but after being instructed to empty their pockets, find themselves charged with a crime.

Reducing the impact of the Bloomberg administration’s stop-and-frisk policy has been a top priority of lawmakers from minority neighborhoods, who have urged Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, to pay more attention to the needs of their communities. The lawmakers argue that young men found with small amounts of marijuana are being needlessly funneled into the criminal justice system and have difficulty finding jobs as a result.

As the Times notes, this is a move that will bring Cuomo into direct conflict with the Bloomberg administration. It's also another example of Cuomo coming down on the more liberal side of an issue -- drug control -- that's changing on a generational basis, as the hard-edged 1980s-style drug war politics fades and younger voters tend to view marijuana as a fairly benign substance.